.............................................................................................................

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2965005.stm

Thousands of Iraqi Shia Muslims on Tuesday staged noisy demonstrations outside the main hotel housing the international media in Baghdad, calling for the release of a senior cleric they said had been arrested by US forces. The first protest late on Monday afternoon took the media and US forces by surprise when about 4,000 Shia men converged on the Palestine Hotel... just under the broadcasting positions of the assembled television news organisations... The protesters then demanded the immediate release of... Sheikh Muhammad al-Fartusi who is the representative in Baghdad of the powerful Hawza council of Ulema, based in Najaf. Within hours, it was reported that the cleric had been released from custody, although US officials have never confirmed he was initially detained. Protesters also chanted "No colonialism."

...Fartusi's alleged arrest could turn into a serious problem for the US military authorities here, because if the Shia Ulema withdraw co-operation it would make American plans for post-Saddam Iraq almost impossible to realise.

...A smaller group, with fewer than 1,000 protesters, returned to the same spot on Tuesday morning where they resumed calls for Sheikh Fartusi's release and chanted Shia religious slogans.

..........................................................................

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-12292039,00.html

As many as 2,000,000 Shi'ites from Iraq, Iran and other countries are converging on the holy city of Karbala in central Iraq. The pilgrimage to Karbala - site of the 7th century martyrdom of Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad and one of the sect's most revered saints - culminates on Thursday.

........................................................................................................

http://www.iraqishia.com/Docs/Declaration.htm

A series of meetings were held in London during 2001 and 2002 to discuss the sectarian problem in Iraq and its effects on Iraq’s present conditions and future... This document - Declaration of the Shia of Iraq- is the result of these discussions and deliberations.

Following the establishment of the constitutional entity that became modern Iraq in 1923, and the organisation of its administrative and political affairs, the sectarian paradigm became a key organising principle of the governing powers. It then quickly evolved into a set of fixed political rules of power and control that has continued into present times.

...The sectarian bases of political power and authority in Iraq [have a] decidedly anti-Shia bias... The authorities simply ignored the catastrophic consequences of these policies, which were to influence all Iraqis regardless of their sectarian, ethnic or religious affiliations... The rights of the Shia are now an issue that is central to the present and future conditions of Iraq, and must now be included in any plan or programme that tries to tackle the reconstruction of the Iraqi state.

...A dictionary definition of the Shia would be those who claim a historic loyalty to the Household of the Prophet and their school of Islam. In the context of Iraq however, the Shii is any person who belongs to the Jaafari sect of Islam either by birth or choice. The Shia in Iraq are not an ethnic group nor a race nor nation... The policies of discrimination against the Shia of Iraq have caused every Shii to believe that he or she is targeted because of their Shiism and for no other reason. The Shii is treated as a second-class citizen almost from birth, and is deliberately distanced from any major position of authority or responsibility... The crystallisation of the Shia as a distinct group owes far more to the policies of discrimination and retribution than to any specifically sectarian or religious considerations. This condition now defines the status of the Shia in Iraq irrespective of the individual Shii’s doctrinal, religious or political orientations.

...The British occupation of Iraq was met by rejection from a united front between the Shia and Sunni populations of Iraq. Both groups were unanimous in refusing the occupation and insistent on the formation of a national government free of foreign control... Britain succeeded in dividing the two communities when it proposed the formation of an Iraqi government that was based on sectarian principles and advantage, and this became the model, which was followed scrupulously by subsequent governments.

... Each new ruler in Iraq found himself confronted with the inchoate anger of the Shia, to which the classic response was to deflect and defuse that threat by a further reduction of the Shia’s presence and role. This constant increase in the level and extent of discrimination and state violence against the Shia has made an explosion inevitable.

...In spite of the fact that the Shia in Iraq subscribe to numerous political and intellectual groupings, it is the islamist movement that has acted as the main political drive for the Shia at the present moment... Iraq has not witnessed social discrimination in terms of one community, the Sunnis, consciously oppressing another, the Shia. The discrimination with which the Shia have been afflicted is entirely the work of the state. This is a vital point to ponder, as the crises with which Iraq had to contend are a consequence of official rather than communal discrimination. Any programme that hopes to reconstruct the terms of power in Iraq has to start from the point of officially inspired discrimination and not mutual communal hostility.

...The only way out of this conundrum is the total rejection of the anti-Shia practices of the state, and the adoption of an inclusive and equitable system of rule that would define the political direction of the future Iraq. This is what the Shia want and not some bogus solution based on the division of the spoils according to demographic formulae, a condition that would very probably result in communal sectarianism becoming a social and political reality rather than a manifestation of an unscrupulous state authority.

...The sectarian differences within Islam can be traced to the dawn of the Islamic era. Iraq’s Muslim population is divided between Sunnis and Shia and there should be no harm or fear about acknowledging this fact. The sects have co-existed by and large for generations with no serious sectarian crises resulting in consequence. Sectarian differences do not constitute a social, intellectual or political issue in the Iraqi context, and sectarian affiliations should be a matter of course. The real issue is official sectarianism rather than sectarian differences. Or in other words, the exploitation of the differences between the sects for the purpose of discriminating between them in order to promote a specific policy of power and control.

...The demands of the Shia can be succinctly summarised as follows: 1. The abolition of dictatorship and its replacement with democracy. 2. The abolition of ethnic discrimination and its replacement with a federal structure for Kurdistan. 3. The abolition of the policy of discrimination against the Shia.

...........................................................................................................

http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=454422003

TURKEY has been asked to send peacekeeping troops into Iraq by the United States... The Turkish military has backed off from threats to invade northern Iraq, but says it reserves that right to do so if Iraqi Kurds try to establish a new state there.

....................................................................................................

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/17/international/worldspecial/17INTE.html?ex=1051764521&ei=1&en=efd8bee71ffa3eb7

American forces have bombed the bases of the main armed Iranian opposition group in Iraq... the Mujahedeen Khalq.

...A senior American military officer said the United States had "bombed the heck" out of at least two of the Mujahedeen group's bases, including its military headquarters at Camp Ashraf, about 60 miles north of Baghdad... The attacks could well anger the more than 150 members of Congress from both parties who have described the Iranian opposition group as an effective source of pressure against Iran's government.

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http://globalresearch.ca/articles/WAT304A.html

After three months in Baghdad as a peace activist, Perth clergyman Neville Watson returned to Australia... Alan Sunderland spoke to him in Perth.

ALAN SUNDERLAND: Reverend Watson, welcome to Insight. You were in Baghdad right through the bombing, the arrival of the coalition troops. So tell me, what are we to make of the scenes of Iraqi jubilation on the streets that we've been seeing here?

NEVILLE WATSON, PEACE ACTIVIST: Well, there certainly was some jubilation, but I certainly wouldn't go along with that presented by television. The one that I've seen a lot of since I've been back is the toppling of the statue of Saddam and I can hardly believe it was the same one that I saw, because it happened at only about 300m from where I was and it was a very small crowd. The rest of the square was almost empty, and when we inquired as to where the crowd came from, it was from Saddam City. In other words, it was a rent-a-crowd. Now, that piece of television has been played over and over again, but I've seen nothing of the pieces of television, for example, what happened in Mosul the other day, where the Americans opened fire on a crowd killing 10 and injuring 100 when it became anti-American. So I think the scenes of jubilation have to be balanced against the other side of the picture.

...ALAN SUNDERLAND: Can you see anything good coming from the current state of affairs in Iraq? I mean, after all, the Hussein regime has been deposed and we may see an end to Western sanctions soon.

NEVILLE WATSON: Without a doubt. I mean, the end of the Saddam Hussein rule is one for jubilation but the way it has been ended is one of great sorrow, because the bombing, the so-called ‘shock and awe’, was one of the most horrific things that I have ever seen. It was designed, as all terrorism is, to create fear by the use of violence... And that bombing will go down in history as one of the most unjustified and most horrific that we have seen of late... I have the awful feeling that neither the Americans nor the Australian authorities have any idea of the humanitarian crisis which is about to occur and I have the feeling that when it does occur, they will be running for cover... Even at this point, the Pontius Pilates are queuing up at the washbasin to wash their hands and I fear for the future and I fear that nobody is going to take responsibility for it.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=399350

The United States is... excising the image and doctrines of Saddam Hussein from classrooms. A private company based in Washington DC, Creative Associates International, is preparing to deploy teams of education experts throughout the country after winning an initial contract from the US government. Its task is to prepare Iraqi primary and secondary schools for the new year starting in October. The contract, which is initially worth $2m (£1.3m), could grow to $62.6m... Critics and Iraqi exiles have warned America against attempting to impose its own world view.

...................................................................................

http://www.caii.net/News/default.htm#CAII%20Publications/Reports

For more than 20 years, Creative Associates International, Inc. (CAII) has been providing technical services to communities, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and private companies around the world. Founded in 1977 by four women, CAII is now an international organization with offices on four continents... Working cooperatively with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), government ministries, international donors, and local stakeholders, Creative Associates designs activities that improve basic education while strengthening individual, community, and institutional capacities to identify needs, create solutions, and engage in collective action.

...The prevention of HIV/AIDS forms an integral part of Creative Associates’ life skills training [for students]. With the prevalence of HIV/AIDS increasing more rapidly among women and girls than among males, CAII recognizes the important role women and girls, as well as men and boys, play in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. CAII also is sensitive to the strategic position religious leaders hold in mitigating the spread of HIV/AIDS and strives to include clergy and cultural leaders in an integrated approach to HIV/AIDS prevention through education. Education to prevent HIV/AIDS involves teaching children how to protect themselves against the virus. In addition to providing information on HIV/AIDS and sexuality issues, CAII develops and promotes life skills programs that empower people to change their behaviors and avoid high-risk situations.

...Creative Associates recognizes that children throughout the world have to work to support their families and themselves. CAII distinguishes between children who work and children who are in abusive labor situations, including slavery, child prostitution and pornography, and work that, by its nature or the circumstances in which

it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety, or morals of children. Creative Associates believes that every child, regardless of economic circumstance, has the right to a basic education, and that, over the long term, education will contribute to the alleviation of poverty. When supported by protective policies and financial support for poverty-stricken families, educational opportunities can help parents choose school over abusive work situations for their children. [and so on.]

.........................................................................

http://www.sunspot.net/business/bal-profits041403,0,7452582.story?coll=bal-business-indepth

Creative Associates, a Washington area for-profit that depends primarily on USAID funding and has bid for the Iraq education contract, saw its revenue grow 25% to $50 million last year... Creative Associates said its margin is no more than 2%, and that it puts what it makes back into the company or into the communities it serves.

.....................................................................................

http://www.hyperia.com/intbusiness.htm

[CAI's] work under the contract will include assessing the state of the country's education system, improving teacher training and providing essential school supplies. "We want to make sure that the school system the Iraqis have will respond to the democratic system I am sure they will wish to establish," said USAID spokesman Alfonso Aguilar. "In terms of text books we will make sure to provide text books that are reliable and useful to students. In no way or form are we trying to impose anything."

USAID said the CAI contract did not include producing text books - this work would be tendered separately, it said.

..........................................................................

http://www.dawn.com/2003/03/05/nat26.htm

PESHAWAR, March 4: The local [Pakistani] printing industry is in danger of losing the contract of publishing textbooks for Afghan schools worth $12 million, after donor agencies refused to award it... General manager of University of Nebraska at Omaha Education Press, Ahmad Shah Durrani, said that last year the Afghan ministry of education got over 12 million textbooks printed from the local printers. He claimed that the Pakistani printers used inferior quality material following which the donor agencies, including the USAID, had directed him (Mr Durrani) that for the current academic year textbooks should be printed in Indonesia, South Korea or any other country, but not in Pakistan.

...Last year, the University of Nebraska at Omaha got printed about four million textbooks for Afghan children, both in Pushto and Dari languages...The university had been providing books to Afghan children since mid-1980s and recently had set up another printing press in Kabul. The NGO officials said that the Afghan education ministry in collaboration with the University of Nebraska was revising school and college curricula and the new curriculum was likely to be introduced by the end of 2004.

................................................................................

one year ago

http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm

Washington Post investigators report that, during the past twenty years, the US has spent millions of dollars producing fanatical schoolbooks, which were then distributed in Afghanistan. "The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then [i.e., since the violent destruction of the Afghan secular government in the early 1990s] as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code." " -- Washington Post, 23 March 2002. According to the Post, the U.S. is now "wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism."

So the books made up the core curriculum in Afghan schools. And what were the unintended consequences? The Post reports that, according to unnamed officials, the schoolbooks "steeped a generation in [Islamist] violence." How could this result have been unintended? Did they expect that having fundamentalist schoolbooks in the core curriculum would produce moderate Muslims?

...What about the new textbooks? Will they "teach tolerance and respect for human dignity" as ["president'"] George promises? ...How will the new textbooks that George Bush Junior is shipping into Afghanistan differ from the old ones? You know, those old books that were also designed at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and also paid for by USAID?

Here's the Washington Post again: "On Feb. 4, [Chris Brown, head of book revision for AID's Central Asia Task Force] arrived in Peshawar, the Pakistani border town in which the textbooks were to be printed, to oversee hasty revisions to the printing plates. Ten Afghan educators labored night and day, scrambling to replace rough drawings of weapons with sketches of pomegranates and oranges, Brown said."] - Washington Post, March 23, 2002

So it appears that the only change is that some violent pictures have been removed from the printing plates and some fruit has been added. There is no indication that the texts have been changed. What does a non-fundamentalist Afghan educator think about the new schoolbooks? "'The pictures [in the old schoolbooks] are horrendous to school students, but the texts are even much worse,' said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, an Afghan educator who is a program coordinator for Cooperation for Peace and Unity, a Pakistan-based nonprofit.'" -- Washington Post, March 23, 2002)

...According to the Washington Post, the "White House defends the religious content" of the schoolbooks. And as for USAID, the Agency for International Development, which pays for the books: 'It's not AID's policy to support religious instruction,' Stratos said. 'But we went ahead with this project because the primary purpose . . . is to educate children, which is predominantly a secular activity.'" - Washington Post, March 23, 2002.

...Having been republished in the new books, these exact same texts have undergone a transformation. They have been reborn as "religious instruction" (says US AID) or "religious content" (says the White House). It's a modern miracle.

..................................................................................

http://www.pugwash.org/reports/nw/hoodbhoy.htm

Readers browsing through book bazaars in Rawalpindi and Peshawar can, even today, find textbooks written as part of the series underwritten by a USAID $50 million grant to the University of Nebraska in the 1980's. These textbooks sought to counterbalance Marxism through creating enthusiasm in Islamic militancy. They exhorted Afghan children to "pluck out the eyes of the Soviet enemy and cut off his legs". Years after the books were first printed they were approved by the Taliban for use in madrassas - a stamp of their ideological correctness.

The cost of America's mission myopia has been a staggering one. The network of Islamic militant organizations created primarily out of the need to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan did not disappear after the immediate goal was achieved but, instead, like any good military-industrial complex, grew from strength to strength.

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http://www.nebraskansforpeace.org/2002/mj02/uno.html

The University of Nebraska has not been true to itself. First, the law prohibits using tax funds to promote specific religions. Second, the University of Nebraska's Affirmative Action policy prohibits discrimination against women, and professional and university guidelines, including those of the national American Association of University Professors, require that university personnel teach the truth as they know it. Finally, university codes forbid recourse to disruption or violence (Regents By-Law 4.1). The anti-female texts produced by UNO between 1986 and 1994 as well the scrubbed texts teaching Islam produced since 9/11 violate the university's rules and values.

...For example, this appears in a 1986-1994 era text: "A Kalashnikov bullet travels at 800 meters per second. A mujahed has the forehead of a Russian in his sights 3200 meters away. How many seconds will it take the bullet to hit the Russian's forehead?" Or "A group of mujahedin kill 178 out of 3560 enemy soldiers in battle. What percentage of the enemy have they killed?". These examples come from fourth grade Nebraska-created textbooks (Washington Post, 3/23/02)... Though the gun-toting and anti-female content of 1986-94 has been scrubbed (at least, an effort has been made), the religious content remains.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$545WOXCR4FM4ZQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2003/04/22/wkor22.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/04/22/ixnewstop.html

A secret Donald Rumsfeld memorandum calling for regime change in North Korea was leaked yesterday... The paper does not call for military action against North Korea, but wants the United States to team up with China in pushing for the collapse of Kim Jong-il's bankrupt but belligerent regime, the New York Times reported. In a sign that Washington is girding itself for a repetition of the bitter rows that preceded the Iraq conflict, the memorandum was leaked on the same day that a senior State Department negotiator flew to Beijing for three-way talks with China and North Korea. Officials working for Mr Rumsfeld are implacably opposed to the talks.

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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2591409&src=eDialog/GetContent

Up to 20 high-ranking North Korean military officers and nuclear scientists have defected to the United States and its allies under a plan involving several countries including the Pacific state of Nauru, an Australian newspaper said on Saturday... The defections began last October... The operation, which has now been wound up, was managed by Americans and New Zealanders operating at arm's length from their governments, the paper said.

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http://jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2003-daily/22-04-2003/world/w12.htm

Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was asked in a television interview if he would advocate military action if North Korea refused to stop developing nuclear weapons. "Yes, I think that that always has to be there as a very strong possibility," Lugar replied in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday.

...Another senior lawmaker said that North Korea was "without question" the major security threat facing the United States.

... Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, who sits on the Senate's intelligence and armed services committees, said Pyongyang had coerced US officials into agreeing to planned talks in Beijing. "This is blackmail that's going on here. Let's call it what it is," he told Fox News. North Korea on Monday removed an obstacle to talks with the United States by revising an official statement.

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http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id=257296

WASHINGTON — The administration of U.S. President George Bush has asked Congress to repeal its 1993 ban on developing low-yield nuclear arms, according to congressional sources. The Bush administration is seeking to include in the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill the abandonment of the ban and substantial funds for research on such "mini nukes," the sources said.

....................................................................................................

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/20/1050777165503.html

Daan Goosen's calling card to the FBI was a vial of bacteria he had freeze-dried and hidden inside a toothpaste tube for secret passage to the United States... On May 6, 2002, Mr Goosen slipped the parcel to a retired CIA officer who couriered the microbes 12,800 kilometres for a drop-off with the FBI. Mr Goosen said he was prepared to offer much more: an entire collection of pathogens developed by a secret South African bioweapons research program he once headed.

Mr Goosen's extraordinary offer to the FBI, outlined in documents obtained by The Washington Post and interviews with participants, promised scores of additional vials containing the bacteria that cause anthrax, plague, salmonella and botulism, as well as antidotes for many of the diseases. All were to be delivered to the US Government... US officials considered the offer but baulked at the asking price - $5,000,000.00... The deal collapsed in confusion last year.

....................................................................................................

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-654833,00.html

[Yesterday] Moscow insisted that sanctions against Iraq stay in force until United Nations weapons inspectors have declared the country free of weapons of mass destruction. At the same time Richard Perle, a leading adviser to the Pentagon, told a Russian newspaper that the country’s multibillion-dollar oil deals with Saddam would probably be annulled. Russia has an estimated $52,000,000,000.00 tied up in deals with Iraq under the sanctions regime and is owed at least $8,000,000,000.00. Moscow has rejected suggestions from the Bush Administration that it should write off the money owed

...Washington has made clear that any historic deals with the former regime will not continue. Mr Perle reaffirmed that view in an interview in the Kommersant newspaper yesterday... Russia had made a mistake by joining forces with France and Germany, he said. “The Russian Government backed a loser.”

...Mr Perle kept his most scathing remarks yesterday for President Chirac of France. “Do you really think the new Iraqi Government is going to invite Jacques Chirac?” he said. “Chirac went too far."

................................................................................................

and we'll show him

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20030418-0722-iraq-france-usa.html

PARIS – A U.S. servicemen's group has taken over a website set up by French President Jacques Chirac, who infuriated Americans with his opposition to the war in Iraq. Type in www.chiracaveclafrance.net, set up by Chirac as part of his re-election campaign last year, and you get the United Service Organisations (USO), a site "Proudly Serving The Men & Women Who Serve Our Country!"

...When the lease on the domain name for Chirac's website expired on March 31, 11 days after the outbreak of war, USO snapped it up, the daily Le Figaro reported on Friday. Chirac supporters wanting to relive his 82 percent landslide in May's presidential run-off now find an advert offering for sale "Hero Beanie Baby," a teddy bear in camouflage uniform.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49929-2003Apr18.html

U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick... last week suggested that because Chile, as a member of the United Nations Security Council, had declined to support the U.S. position on Iraq, final congressional approval of a free-trade pact between the two nations would be delayed indefinitely.

http://jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2003-daily/22-04-2003/world/w2.htm

AMMAN: UN officials voiced disappointment on Monday at the "mysterious" refusal by US forces to grant them an air corridor to fly back much-neeeded international staff into Iraq... UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (UNHCI) Ramiro Lopes da Silva announced on April 12 in Jordan that 31 international UN staff would return to the northern governorates of Dohuk, Arbil and Sulaymaniyah two days later. But the formal request, he made on April 9, has fallen on deaf ears as coalition forces continue to deny international UN staff access to US-controlled northern Iraq.

...[UNHCI spokesman in Amman David] Wimhurst warned that the delay was "undermining the UN's aid effort in Iraq" at a time when the first major UN food and medical convoys were making their way back to Baghdad from Jordan. "As long as we are denied access it means that our staff can't go back and start to really generate the support that we need. We are bringing in convoys of food and medicine and we need people there to receive them and to organise distributions," Wimhurst said on the sidelines of an UN aid briefing.

..........................................................................................

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/21/1050777195239.html

Basra: Fastfood giants Pizza Hut and Burger King have set up their first franchises inside war-torn Iraq, even as many aid convoys waited on the borders for the war to officially end.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,940335,00.html

Less than two weeks after the collapse of the regime, thousands of members of the Arab Ba'ath Socialist party... are resuming their roles as the men and women who run Iraq. Two thousand policemen - all cardholding party members - have put on the olive green, or the grey-and-white uniforms of traffic wardens, and returned to the streets of Baghdad at America's invitation. Dozens of minders from the information ministry, who spied on foreign journalists for the security agencies, have returned to the Palestine Hotel where most reporters stay, offering their services as translators... Seasoned bureaucrats at the oil ministry - including the brother of General Amer Saadi, the chemical weapons expert now in American custody - have been offered their jobs back by the US military. Feelers have also gone out to Saddam's health minister, despite past American charges that Iraqi hospitals stole medicine from the sick. It has become increasingly apparent that Washington cannot restore governance to Baghdad without resorting to the party which for decades controlled every aspect of life under the regime. It has equally become apparent that the Ba'ath party - whose neighbourhood spy cells were as feared as the state intelligence apparatus - will survive.

"The coming bureaucracy will be overwhelmed by Ba'athists. They had loyalty to Saddam Hussein, and now they have loyalty to foreign invaders," said Wamidh Nadhmi, a political science professor at Baghdad University.

...[On the other hand,] "The Arab Ba'ath Socialist party was not Saddam Hussein's idea. Like Marxism, it was not founded by Lenin and Stalin. It is an idea. That is why the Arab masses sup ported Iraq, not because of Saddam Hussein, but because of ideas," said a senior culture bureaucrat... The party, with its secular principles - though trampled on by Saddam's cynical use of religion - also represents a bulwark against a nascent Islamist movement among Iraq's disenfranchised Shia majority. For middle class Iraqis, the declarations for religious self-rule now emanating from mosques in Baghdad and southern cities are deeply troubling. The new assertiveness by the Shia clergy probably does not sit very well with the Americans either. So that leaves the Ba'ath.

..............................................................................................

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/22/wpost22.xml/

Senior Bush administration officials yesterday called for American forces to leave Iraq within months in the face of political and financial constraints on a lengthy occupation... In contrast, before the war, the State Department sent Congress a plan for rebuilding Iraq setting deadlines of six and 12 months for such tasks as providing basic health care to all Iraqis, and repairing 6,000 schools... [and also] promised to move Iraq towards "self-managed economic prosperity."

...[But today] one senior official said: "The president's goal is to leave Iraq on the road to prosperity and security and democracy - or at least give them a fighting chance of it." Pentagon officials focused on the costs of post-war reconstruction, challenging assumptions that tens of billions of dollars should be spent. Defence officials told the Post that it would not take much to bring infrastructure back to pre-war levels, noting that Iraqis were used to power cuts and imperfect water supplies.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/02/27/wbush27.xml

[on 27/02/2003, George Bush told the American Enterprise Institute in Washington that] ...Post-war Iraq could benefit in the same way that Europe did after the Second World War. "Rebuilding Iraq will require a sustained commitment from many nations, including our own: We will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more. America has made this kind of commitment before in the peace that followed a world war. After defeating enemies, we did not leave occupying armies, we left constitutions and parliaments. We established an atmosphere of safety, in which responsible, reform-minded local leaders could build lasting institutions of freedom. In societies that once bred fascism and militarism, liberty found a permanent home."

Liberating Iraq, he said, would accelerate a "desire for freedom" across the Middle East.

...........................................................................................................

http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=2936&version=1&template_id=263&parent_id=258

British forces detained Al-Jazeera TV correspondent Mohammad Al-Sayed Mohsen on Sunday in the Iraqi city of Basra where he is covering the US-led occupation. Two British armoured vehicles approached the crew... and asked to see their press cards. Mohsen said a British soldier “became furious” when he read the cards, issued from the Iraqi Information Ministry, and confiscated his camera. The Al-Jazeera correspondent said it was the third time British forces had harassed him... The Al-Jazeera correspondent said the British soldier said US-led forces “were dealing only with listed journalists who accompanied coalition forces.”

...The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the arrest. “For US-led forces to detain a journalist working in Iraq is a violation of press freedom," [they said]. The crew [but not the correspondent] was released after three hours.

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thirty million per budget

http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=16009&Print=true

Infuriated by al-Jazeera’s independent coverage of the US-led invasion of Iraq... the US government is to compete with the notorious satellite news channel on its home pitch: Not so well hidden within the Bush administration’s published $74,700,000,000.00 supplemental appropriations request to pay for the war and homeland security is a $30,500,000.00 request for a new broadcast news network in the Middle East - the Middle East Television Network. The money is to provide start-up costs for such a network, which will broadcast news and information with a pro-American spin in Arabic via satellite to televisions across the region.

It is also the second request for funding for the project in the last two months. Last month, President Bush’s international affairs budget included another $30,000,000.00 request for the network... The new funds will pay for remaining start-up costs and the network’s first year of operations.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the BBG’s chairman, Kenneth Tomlinson [said]... "Al-Jazeera should not go unanswered in the Middle East." [The US recently] bombed the offices of Al-Jazeera in both Afghanistan and Iraq - as well as those of rival Abu Dhabi television.

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http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/20/1050777165468.html

Ten days after American forces swept triumphantly into Baghdad, the Iraqi capital remains in the grip of a medical crisis. Most of the city's hospitals and clinics are closed, many of them looted and vandalised. The few still working are crippled by the lack of power and water, by shortages of medicines and food and by the absence of many staff too afraid to return to work because of the continuing lawlessness.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/20/wloot20.xml/

It's fast, easy and encouragingly cheap to enter the booming market in Iraqi antiquities. How about an early Sumerian glass-beaded necklace for only $24? A 2,000-year-old bronze arrowhead for $14? Or an ancient cuneiform tablet, moulded from Mesopotamian clay, and bearing the imprint of a barter deal for sheep or wine, for $1.25? They can all be found within a few seconds on ebay and other websites on the internet, and there's plenty more on the way.

...It now appears that the looting of the museum was neither spontaneous nor random. In all probability, it was planned well in advance of the American-led invasion... McGuire Gibson, the president of the American Association for Research in Baghdad [says]... "My feeling is that it was organised abroad." Witnesses have spoken of seeing well-dressed men with walkie-talkies at the scene, and of artefacts being transported away in orderly convoys of vans rather than over the heads of the crowd.

..."Archaeological and cultural organisations had been warning of attacks like these for months," says Dr Neil Brodie, of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre in Cambridge.

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http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=2876&version=1&template_id=263&parent_id=258

While many Iraqis began returning to work, oil ministry employees were wondering why US forces, heavily guarding their offices, barred them from re-entering the building on Saturday. It was also unclear why a Baghdad power station had apparently been booby-trapped by occupation troops. There was no comment from the US military in Qatar and Kuwait.

...As many as 100 oil-industry employees loitered around the ministry complex, as soldiers stood guard behind barbed wire barriers... Meanwhile, employees of a major Baghdad power plant were also bewildered by the presence of several explosive devices planted around the Jameela facility, which supplies one third of the capital’s electricity. Trip-wire detonators could be seen strung across doorways inside the building, and packs of ready meals (MRE), trademark of western military forces, were visibly scattered across the floor.

...Measures taken at Jameela and the oil ministry were likely intended for temporary security purposes, said Texas University professor of government, Clement Henry... “It’s just part of the great imperial plan of [Deputy Defence Secretary] Wolfowitz,” said Henry.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=399349

Ahmed Chalabi, the man the Pentagon has been pushing as the face of the new Iraq, is mourning the first fatalities within his ranks. Two members of Mr Chalabi's pro-US Iraqi National Congress (INC) and one member of his militia, the Free Iraqi Forces, were shot dead by US Marines trying to protect a bank in Baghdad... INC and American sources say the US Marines opened fire because of a misunderstanding.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=399348

Barbara Bodine... is to become the US co-ordinator for central Iraq, assuming a position that will make her responsible for Baghdad. She arrived in the Iraqi capital yesterday... [and] immediately placed herself at the centre of controversy, saying America did not recognise the Iraqi diplomat who has proclaimed himself the mayor of Baghdad... Last week, Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, the deputy head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), claimed he had been elected head of an interim council to run the city. Over the weekend he announced that 22 individual committees had been established to oversee the various aspects of Baghdad's civil administration.

But yesterday Ms Bodine, 54, said... "We don't really know much about him except that he's declared himself mayor."

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=285430&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

The Jewish Agency and the Mossad are looking into the possibility of bringing the remaining Jews in Iraq to Israel, according to official Israeli sources. The same sources confirmed that talks were being held with the U.S. administration in an effort to gain Washington's approval for an operation. At this time, U.S. military officials operating in Iraq are not inclined to allow the operation to take place... Another problem that the organizers in Israel are facing is the lack of willingness on the part of the Iraqi Jews to leave the country for Israel.

...In recent days, the danger to the Jewish community in Baghdad has grown... because of the rising interest that journalists are showing in them. The Iraqi capital is home to 34 Jews.

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=286212&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Judge Advocate General Menachem Finkelstein recently decided to drop the indictment of a paratroopers officer who was accused of violating orders by shooting at a car carrying journalists in Hebron. Instead, the officer instead will face a disciplinary hearing... The officer, Second Lieutenant A... [was due for a promotion but] the promotion of A., who has been serving as an instructor in the armored corps, has been delayed due to the incident. [things are tough all over --mrs. h]

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2582294,00.html

NABLUS, West Bank (AP) - An Israeli soldier shot and killed a cameraman with Associated Press Television News who was covering a skirmish between troops and rock-throwing Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus on Saturday, witnesses said... He and other cameramen, still photographers and reporters had been at the bottom of the alley and were wearing brightly colored vests that said "Press.'' ...The conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories remains one of the world's most dangerous assignments for journalists.

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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12872773&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=PEACE%20PROCESS%20LIES%20IN%20TATTERS

ISRAELI attacks on the Gaza strip and squabbling within the new Palestinian administration over the weekend threatened to derail the peace "roadmap". On the eve of a rumoured visit by Tony Blair, nine people were killed and more than 70 injured in the worst flare-up of violence since the Jenin massacre a year ago... An Israeli soldier died when 40 armoured vehicles backed by attack helicopters targeted and killed local Hamas leader Mohammed Abu Shamla.

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/284943.html

Palestinian prime minister-designate Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) stormed out of a meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and the PLO central committee in Ramallah Saturday night after Arafat blocked his choice for a key portfolio. Abu Mazen also threatened to quit, political sources told Reuters... The main point of contention between the two is Abu Mazen's intention to appoint former Gaza Strip security chief Mohammed Dahlan as a minister without portfolio on security matters in his new cabinet... On Saturday, Arafat said that at most, Dahlan could be appointed as a minister dealing with peace negotiations... So far, Arafat seems victorious on the issue of the Dahlan appointment, with most Fatah and PLO institutes supporting the Palestinian leader's objections to the nomination. Senior United States sources have relayed messages to Abu Mazen in recent days, urging him to stand up to Arafat's pressure on appointments in the Palestinian cabinet, Israel Radio reported on Saturday.

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=285044&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

You don't make peace with a frustrated society that is consumed with hatred for the same Western world of which we are part. For us, it would be best if the Arabs were cured of their inferiority complex and did not have to nurse a new bleeding wound. For a peace accord to have any real hope, it must be a comprehensive peace, based on reconciliation with the peoples around us... We have no wish to be seen by the world at large as the Americans' poodle.

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despite what he said eariler

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/4/18/213403.shtml

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. State Department official declared Friday that Secretary of State Colin Powell has no plans to visit Syria nor to launch a Middle East peace trip anytime soon.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/2958643.stm

Damascus-- In a year's time, there will be American tanks rumbling through the narrow streets of this typical Middle Eastern city - at least that's what a lot of people here are starting to believe as every day brings more US accusations against Syria.

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http://www.latimes.com/la-na-deficit19apr19,0,3538533.story

WASHINGTON -- The government ran up a deficit of $252.6 billion in the first six months of the 2003 budget year, nearly twice the total for the same period a year earlier, the Treasury Department reported Friday. Record deficits are forecast this year and next as the government's financial situation continues to deteriorate.

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-04-21-reserves-usat_x.htm

Four in 10 members of the National Guard or reserves lose money when they leave their civilian jobs for active duty, according to a Pentagon survey taken in 2000. Of 1.2 million members, 223,000 are on active duty... The last time you'd see this type of mobilization activity was during World War II," says Maj. Charles Kohler of the Maryland National Guard. Of the Maryland Guard's 8,000 members, 3,500 are on active duty. Kohler knows several who are in serious financial trouble. One had to file for bankruptcy after a yearlong deployment, during which his take-home pay fell by two-thirds.

... Members of Congress are pushing several bills to ease the burden:

Some employers make up the difference in salary for reservists on active duty. But many, including the federal government, do not. A bill sponsored by Democratic Sens. Mikulski, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana would require the federal government to make up lost pay. Landrieu... has also introduced a bill to give private employers a 50% tax credit if they subsidize reservists' salaries.

...Once on active duty, reservists, Guard members and their families are covered by Tricare. But for the 75% of reserve and Guard families living more than 50 miles from military treatment facilities, finding physicians who participate in Tricare can be difficult. A measure sponsored by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, would give reservists and Guard members the option of making Tricare their regular insurer or having the federal government pay premiums for their civilian health insurance while they are on active duty.

...The Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act caps interest rates on mortgages, car payments and other debts owned by military personnel at 6% while they are on active duty. But Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is the Senate's only reservist, says the act doesn't apply to debts that are held in the name of a spouse who is not a member of the military. He plans to introduce legislation to cover spouses.

...None of the bills is assured of passage. There's concern among some administration officials about the cost of some of the proposals. In addition, some at the Pentagon think morale would be hurt if some reservists end up with higher incomes than their counterparts in the regular ranks.

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http://www.drudgereport.com/parade.htm

A split has developed among White House advisers over whether to hold an official victory parade for the nation's military... The president is said to favor heavily incorporating specific Iraq-war military salutes with Washington DC's official Fourth of July festivities, insiders reveal... Key Bush advisers have suggested a high-profile parade for war heroes to be held in the nation's capital, or New York City, or both.

...One concern about any parade in New York is the possible appearance of political posturing for next summer's Republican Convention, being held in the city.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/20/international/worldspecial/20DETA.html?ex=1051799944&ei=1&en=9046d71b4c34ea49

PORTLAND, Ore., April 18 — Behind the metal doors of a federal penitentiary near here, Maher Hawash has been imprisoned for 29 days without charge, linked to a terrorist plot in ways that the government refuses to describe. Mr. Hawash, an American citizen, is considered a material witness in a case against six people accused of conspiring to join the Taliban and Al Qaeda to fight against United States forces in Afghanistan, said government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Friends of Mr. Hawash, who is known as Mike, said that he prayed in the same mosque as two of the terrorism suspects.

...Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, more than two dozen people — including several American citizens — have been detained without charges as material witnesses in terrorism cases across the country... Justice Department officials say their detention of material witnesses has been lawful, and critical to the battle against terrorism. "It is difficult for a person in jail or under detention to murder innocent people or to aid or abet in terrorism," Attorney General John Ashcroft said.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/19/international/worldspecial/19DETR.html?ex=1051765185&ei=1&en=013f0caa740d4c8f

The judge at the trial of four men accused of being members of a terror cell criticized Attorney General John Ashcroft today for praising the government's chief witness and implied that Mr. Ashcroft had violated his ban on public comments about the case... Defense lawyers said today that they might move to have Mr. Ashcroft held in contempt... The judge said of Mr. Ashcroft, "I was concerned and distressed to wake up this morning to hear the attorney general discuss the credibility of a witness in this trial." Barbara Comstock, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said today that Mr. Ashcroft's comments were part of "a wide-ranging press conference discussing many different matters in the public record."

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http://www.lisarein.com/michaelmoore/michaelmoorecompare.html

To All:

I'm urgently calling for an investigation of the broadcast by CNN and CNN Headline News's reporting of Michael Moore's acceptance speech last month at the Academy Awards. CNN and CNN Headline News aired a significantly different audio response to Mr. Moore's speech than was orginally broadcasted on ABC. It seems that someone has manipulated the audio to give the impression there was constant loud "booing" throughout Moore's speech, when in reality, there was only marginal booing often overridden with cheers and applause.

This needs to be fully investigated. As you may well know it is not easy to demonstrate how the corporate media influences mass opinion, but here we have a clear and shocking example of unethical behavior through manipulation of a historic event. Let's help the public to better understand corporate media bias by making CNN and CNN Headline News face the REAL story.

Sincerely, Ellison Horne (ellisonhorne@yahoo.com)

[see website for video clips from the broadcast and the re-broadcast.]

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http://www.rense.com/general37/dark.htm

At 8:15 Monday Morning Today Show host Matt Lauer... introduced Tim Robbins, who along with his wife Susan Sarandon, had had their invitations [to the baseball hall of fame thing] revoked. Lauer quizzed Robbins on free speech, and pointedly asked Robbins if he had planned to use the Hall of Fame event as a platform for a political statement. Robbins said 'of course not.' The discussion went back in forth for a few minutes, with Lauer being neither accommodating nor confrontational. And Robbins' responses were equally measured. But Robbins did end up saying things that have hardly been heard before since the war began. "The message is if you speak out against this administration you can and will be punished" Robbins explained. "We're sending out messages on an almost daily basis that they have no right to protest against this President" said Robbins.

...By 8:24 Robbins was explaining, "We're fighting for freedom for the Iraqi people right now so that they can have freedom of speech, yet we're telling our own citizens they have to be quiet." Lauer [replid,]... "When you see pictures of Iraqi's dancing and celebrating -does it change your mind?" "No," said Robbins - "I'm ecstatic that they feel this freedom, I hope we have the resolve to get in there and make it work--"

It was at this point that... the music swelled under Robbins, mid-sentence answering a question that had been asked just 10 seconds earlier: "We have a terrible track record" said Robbins, clearly not able to hear that music was coming up to literally 'play him off the stage'.

The camera cut to a wide shot. Lauer was leaning in and very much in conversation... [Then] the bumper music ended and the studio was in the two shot, as Robbins said, "It's for some reason not in our best interest to keep it going and pursue it to the next level--" Lauer nodded, and the camera faded to black as Robbins - mid sentence - had his microphone turned down.